


They Say

by tamerofdarkstars



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, It's about time these two have a discussion, Lars isn't sure how to express feelings with words, Lars puts his foot in his mouth multiple times, Miscommunication, Sadie Miller is a literal angel and should be protected at all costs, Steven 'Pep Talk' Universe everyone, The Cool Kids are pretty chill, Trope Subversion, conversely lars has absolutely zero chill, not actually fake/pretend relationship, Перевод на русский | Translation in Russian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-13 01:45:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10503873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamerofdarkstars/pseuds/tamerofdarkstars
Summary: The Cool Kids assume Lars has a girlfriend.This may or may not come back to bite him.EDIT: Russian translation now available!





	

**Author's Note:**

> Where do I file my formal request to the Crewniverse for another Lars/Sadie episode?
> 
> EDIT: Now with a [translation into Russian here!](https://ficbook.net/readfic/5559285/16315750#part_con) This was done by the absolutely wonderful [hellyeaaaaaah](https://hellyeaaaaaah.tumblr.com/) over on tumblr! Thank you so very much! <3

Hanging out with the Cool Kids made Lars’ palms sweaty. He leaned against the brick wall in the shade of the boardwalk, trying surreptitiously to wipe his hands on his jeans without losing the cool and aloof pose he’d worked hard on perfecting in his bedroom mirror.

Jenny and Buck were bent over Jenny’s phone, scrolling through the social media pages of someone Lars didn’t know. To their left, Sour Cream was sitting on a bench, head tipped back towards the sun, eyes closed as he bobbed his head to the beat of whatever was pulsing through his headphones.

“Oh my gosh, look! She’s so pretty!” Jenny declared, double tapping on the photo. Lars craned his head, trying to see but not be super obvious about it. Craning messed with his pose and he wobbled a bit, scrambling to re-position himself properly against the wall.

“Buck approves,” Buck said and Jenny sighed.

“I’m messaging her and totally asking where she got those shoes.” Jenny’s fingers flew across the phone and Buck lost interest, becoming engrossed in the journey of a seagull across the boardwalk towards some abandoned fries scattered near a trash can.

Lars glanced from Buck to Sour Cream to Jenny, all absorbed in their own activities, and tried not to feel… well, bored. Sadie had asked him if he’d wanted to hang after work earlier and he’d turned her down, the text from Sour Cream on his phone already opened and replied to. But now, leaning uncomfortably against the wall, he kind of wished he’d said yes – Sadie was probably in those goofy bunny slippers she liked so much, curled in her beanbag and watching the new _Buckets of Blood_ movie without him.

Unbidden, his lip curled in a half-smile, picturing the scene. Sadie’s basement bedroom was the best place in the whole city for movie-watching, in his opinion. She had the best collection of horror movies in Beach City and her bed was close enough and big enough to the TV that both of them could sprawl comfortably, shoulder to shoulder.

Lars liked to steal the pillow and tuck it under his chin to prop up his head. It smelled like that strawberry shampoo Sadie used and he always went home after movie nights feeling a little dizzy from burying his face in the pillow for too long.

“Hey, Lars, what’s with the grin?”

Lars snapped back to reality, blinking. Jenny was examining him, her thumbs poised over her phone and a quizzical expression on her face.

“Thinkin’ about his girlfriend, probably,” Buck said from where he was crouched near the trash can, trying to get a suspicious seagull to eat a french fry from his hand.

“Oh!” Jenny seemed to accept this and went back to her phone.

Lars slipped down the wall, knees suddenly weak. “W-Wait, I wasn’t—!”

“It’s chill, dude,” Sour Cream said, eyes still closed. Lars hadn’t even known he was listening to them.

“I don’t have… I mean… uh…!” Lars scrambled for words. This was bad – if he protested he didn’t have a girlfriend, would that make him less cool in the eyes of Jenny, Buck, and Sour Cream? If they ever found out that he’d _never_ dated anybody, they’d probably think he was some kind of weirdo who couldn’t talk to people! But he _didn’t_ have a girlfriend.

Quick! Lie!

“I mean, uh, yeah, my… girlfriend.” Lars resolutely didn’t think about the fact that he’d been thinking about Sadie, of all people. His face grew warm. Sadie wasn’t… she wasn’t his girlfriend, she was just... his friend. Who also happened to be a girl.

And who happened to like the same movies and snacks that he did and who laughed brightly and who liked to sing trashy pop songs in the back room when she thought no one was listening and who he’d kissed on a sun-drenched tropical island someplace far away from Beach City.

Just a friend.

“You should totally invite her to hang with us!” Jenny said, scrolling through her phone. “Buck, get away from that bird.”

“Buck’s feeding it a fry, Jen.”

“Buck’s gonna get bit by a rat with wings is what’s gonna happen if you don’t move your butt away.”

Buck groaned and stood up from the crouch. “So uncool.”

Sour Cream cracked an eye open. “Lars should bring his girlfriend to the rave this weekend.”

Jenny perked up. “Ohmigod, totally!” She pocketed her phone and Lars felt his stomach drop into his sneakers. This was not good. He was rapidly losing control of the situation.

“I should… huh?”

Buck grinned at him, forgetting the bird. “It’ll be awesome. SC’s got these crazy new beats he’s gonna unveil for everyone. The beach, this Saturday. Bring your lady, we’ll have a blast.”

Lars swallowed. Play it cool, play it cool. “Uh, yeah! S-Sure!” He rubbed his palms on his thighs again and chewed on his lip as the conversation turned to details about the rave.

This wasn’t good. Where was he going to find a girl willing to pretend to be his girlfriend in the next forty-eight hours?

His stomach twisted, hard, like some invisible giant had reached into his gut and pinched.

Because there was really only one option, wasn’t there?

The idea of standing in front of Sadie Miller and asking her to be his pretend-girlfriend was horrifying. But what choice did he have? The only other girl he was relatively friendly with was… well, ok, so it was just Sadie.

Lars swallowed. He was so _screwed_.

-

The walk up to Sadie’s front door was longer than usual, Lars was sure of it. It never used to take this long to walk from the street to her front door.

Lars dragged his feet up the steps and stepped onto the porch.

His throat was dry, painfully scratchy, and when he sucked in a breath, it felt like shards of glass scraping down the back of his throat and dropping into his stomach.

He raised a fist, poised to knock.

_What the heck was he doing here?_

A pained whine rose in his throat and before he could chicken out, Lars knocked hurriedly.

Bang bang bang!

“Oops, no one’s home!” Lars wheezed, stupidly relieved, and spun on his heel to go.

The door opened behind him.

“Lars?”

Sadie sounded confused and a little sleepy. Lars froze, heart in his throat, and slowly turned around.

She was standing in her doorway, blinking up at him, all soft and cozy looking. She was wrapped up in a big fluffy bathrobe, her blonde curls damp from what must have been a late night bubble bath.

Lars stared at her.

Sadie stared back.

The silence stretched.

“Lars?” Sadie tried again, and Lars shook his head, snapping himself back to the problem at hand. The problem being his sweaty palms and his pounding heart and the glass shards stuck in his throat.

“Uh, h-hey, Sadie,” Lars said weakly.

“Hey!” Sadie smiled, tentative and unsure, and Lars’s heart gave an unpleasant thump. “What’s up? I thought you had plans tonight.”

“Uh… I did! I do.” Lars took a deep breath. “Listen, I kind of need your help.”

Sadie sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Listen, Lars, I know I said you could come to me for whatever, but if this is another ‘which pose is cooler’ discussion, I really don’t—”

Lars sucked in as much air as his lungs could hold. “Ineedyoutobemygirlfriend!”

Sadie paused, squinting at him. “You… what?”

Lars clenched both hands into fists, balling them up at his sides. “I need… you to be my girlfriend.”

The silence was thick and heavy. Sadie stared at him, mouth open, eyes big and round and surprised, before her eyebrows came down and she frowned, suspicious.

Lars plunged forward, stumbling through the explanation. “You know… uh… I need you to pretend! Pretend to be my girlfriend. Because the guys, they think-- well, I told them I had a—”

“Shut up.”

Lars blinked. Sadie was glaring at him, hands balled into fists to match his, only she didn’t seem to be shaking with nerves. She looked… angry. Upset. There was an unhappy set to her mouth, lips tilted down at the corners, and—Lars sucked in a breath like he’d been punched—there were shimmering tears at the corners of her eyes.

“Sadie…?” he asked and she shook her head sharply.

“Why are you such a jerk?” she demanded and Lars winced. Sadie reached up and angrily swiped at the tears brimming over and trickling down her cheeks. Lars reached for her, an automatic motion he quickly aborted as she shot a glare so venomous his way, he took a step backwards.

“Hey, I’m not—”

“You are!” Sadie snapped. She gripped the bathrobe tighter around her body like she could shield herself from him. “You… ugh, it was bad when it turned out to be just Steven stuck in your body, but to have _you_ go and do it too!”

This was not exactly going how Lars had imagined it. “Huh? Steven?”

Sadie took a deep breath. “You know how I feel about you, Lars,” she said plainly and Lars felt the whole world stutter to a halt beneath his feet. “And I get you don’t like me back, but...”

Sadie had always been braver than he was.

Lars opened his mouth but no words came to mind. It was like he’d forgotten how to speak English. Sadie watched him for a long moment, her face tight and upset, before she sighed, deeply.

“Go away, Lars. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

She turned away, going to shut the door, and Lars found his voice.

“S-Sadie!”

She paused, hand on the door frame. There was something on her face, some expression that Lars couldn’t quite nail down, but one that squeezed his heart in his chest.

Lars opened his mouth, then closed it. Words bubbled up in his chest, screaming to be heard, but when he took a breath to speak, instead of the apology that she desperately needed to hear, his mouth-to-brain circuits completely shorted out.

“What am I supposed to do about the rave on Saturday?”

Sadie’s shoulders tensed and in that moment, Lars understood that he’d said something very very wrong.

Sadie turned around, and there was a look on her face that Lars had never seen before. Anger mixed with an aching hurt, tears brimming in her eyes. As he stared, feeling his blood roar in panic in his ears, a tear let go and trailed down Sadie’s cheek.

“I think it’s best if we don’t hang out anymore.”

Lars took a step back, as though Sadie’s words had tumbled from her mouth and dropped heavy onto his shoulders. He heel caught the edge of the step and he stumbled, quickly stepping down a step to stop himself from falling.

“Sadie...” he said, helplessly, but Sadie straightened her spine and jutted out her chin.

“Bye, Lars,” she said, and her voice cracked and oh, that hurt. Lars didn’t realize his hand was moving until his fingers were twisted hard in his own shirt, just over his heart. His chest ached and he wondered dizzily if he was dying.

Then Sadie turned around and went inside, shutting the door behind her with a click.

The twisting in Lars’ stomach turned abruptly to anger.

“Well, fine!” he yelled at the door, throat tight and something hot prickling behind his eyes. “Who needs you, Sadie? Not me!”

He turned and stormed down the walk, not really looking where he was going, just putting one foot in front of the other.

His stomping feet hit the pavement, thudding in rhythm with his heartbeat and the blood throbbing in his ears.

As quickly as it had spiked, the anger was fading, morphing into something sick and unpleasant and slimy in the pit of his stomach.

_This is all your fault. You knew she wouldn’t stick around forever._

“Shut up,” snarled Lars. A few feet in front of him, Onion jumped, surprised, and dropped the stick he’d been dragging along the ground behind him. Lars didn’t notice him standing there, wrapped up in his own thoughts, and Onion scurried away from him as the sidewalk led out of Sadie’s neighborhood and down towards the pier.

_All your fault. If you could maybe just spit out a word or two to let her know you care, maybe you wouldn’t have just lost her._

“Shut up shut up shut up!” Lars yelled, yanking his hands up and clamping them over his ears, as though he could block out the voice in his head.

_Not like you don’t care. Idiot. Can’t even admit it inside your own head._

Lars let out a rasped breath, a small strangled noise halfway between a growl and a sob, and threw himself onto the nearest empty bench. He squeezed his eyes shut, tilting his head up to the sky and listening to the roar of the waves below the pier combined with the shrieks of delight from the people enjoying the amusement park.

Sadie was never going to speak to him again and if Lars was being totally honest with himself, he deserved it. He just… she was so _pretty_ and funny and smart and kind and way too good and pure for someone as cynical and pissed off with the world as he was. When Lars was around her, words got heavy in his mouth, thick and hard to chew. She’d grin at him while restocking the chocolate glaze and his stomach would get all hot and twisty and his throat would close and his palms would sweat.

She’d make a joke under her breath about a customer and then look wildly apologetic and Lars would snicker, grinning until she tentatively laughed too.

Sadie Miller would throw popcorn at him during the scariest parts of those slasher movies and laugh delightedly when he’d shriek and Lars would stare at her in the white-green light of the TV in her dark basement bedroom and he’d want to kiss her.

The week that Steven had accidentally zapped the two of them to that out of the way tropical island had been undeniably the best week of his life. They’d never talked about it after they’d gotten back – and thinking back, Lars wondered if Sadie had been waiting for him to broach the subject. If that’s what all the side-eyed glances and stuttered half-questions and aborted conversations had been about.

If Sadie had lain awake at night too, staring at her ceiling and replaying that kiss over and over again.

Lars dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. He would have to quit at the Big Donut. He couldn’t go back to work there and spend all day standing behind the counter shoulder to shoulder with the best shot he ever had at actually being happy. With the girl who used to be his best friend. With the girl he… he maybe kind of…

“Hey, Lars? What’re you doing?”

Lars cracked his eyes open, lowering his hands, and examined Steven.

Had he gotten taller? The boy looked a little more withdrawn then the last time Lars had seen him, which felt like forever ago. He was carrying himself differently too, loose and confident. But despite this, he still had the same red shirt and the same big eyes, the ones that made everyone in Beach City seem to want to tell him all their secrets.

“Go away, Steven,” Lars mumbled, pressing his hands into his eyes again. He pressed down so hard that spots of color winked against the blackness.

“Are… you ok?” Steven’s voice was quiet.

“I’m fine.” Lars peeled his hands away from his eyes again and stared over Steven’s head at the ocean beyond. The sun was starting to set, creeping down towards the horizon and painting Beach City in a bright orange glow. The last time he’d sat and watched a sunset, Sadie had been sitting next to him, torn up and dirty and grinning a blindingly happy grin as they cooked fish over the bonfire.

“Then why are you crying?”

Lars started, reaching up and angrily scrubbing the back of his hand across his eyes. They were only a little _damp_. He wasn’t _crying_.

He looked down at Steven, who looked back at him patiently.

Finally, Lars sighed and gave in to the inevitable.

“I… had a fight with Sadie.”

Steven winced and climbed up on the bench to sit next to him. Lars expected him to speak but Steven stayed silent for a long moment.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Steven finally asked and Lars felt every molecule in his body resist that idea suddenly and violently.

“No. I want to forget it ever happened.”

More silence. The waves lapped the beach. Behind them, a child screamed in terrified delight as the roller coaster climbed steadily to the top of the hill.

“Maybe you should talk to Sadie about it instead of trying to pretend it didn’t happen,” Steven said quietly. When Lars looked sideways at him, Steven had his hands clasped in his lap and was studying his knuckles with a kind of quiet concentration. “She’s your friend. She’ll let you apologize.”

Lars winced. “Not anymore,” he muttered and pulled his knees to his chest.

Steven snorted. “I doubt you could do anything to make Sadie stop being friends with you. She’s one of the nicest, most forgiving people in all of Beach City! Plus, she loves you.”

The words sank into Lars’ skin, burrowing beneath the top layer and setting his whole body on fire.

“I asked Sadie to be my fake girlfriend so I wouldn’t show up to a party this weekend alone.” The confession burst from Lars’ chest and clawed its way out of his throat. For a moment, it hung there in the air in front of them.

Steven’s mouth fell open. “You did _what_!? Are you crazy!? You know how Sadie feels about you, Lars! Why would you do something like that when it could do nothing but hurt her!”

“I didn’t…! I wasn’t thinking— I didn’t _mean_ to hurt her!” Lars protested, feeling his stomach drop lower with each word. He hadn’t meant to, but he had. He’d hurt her badly. He’d been thinking of the rave, of Sour Cream and Buck and Jenny. And if he was really really honest, a small tiny part of him was thinking that if he could just have this, if he could be selfish and get Sadie to agree to be his pretend-girlfriend for a day, then he wouldn’t have to be afraid of not being good enough. He could have Sadie but not have her. He could hold her hand and stand too close and look down at her curls and smile like a stupid sap and not worry about his sharp tongue making her cry. None of the risk of a relationship, all the reward. Bliss for a day. A taste of everything he’d ever wanted but been too petrified to ask for.

He was such an idiot.

“I thought...” Lars began, staring at the concrete sidewalk beneath the bench. “I thought that maybe…”

“I don’t care what you thought!” Steven sounded indignant. He poked Lars hard in the shoulder and _ow_ , dang, the kid must be working out with that pack of crazy Gem aunts he lived with down on the beach. That hurt! “Turn your butt around and go find Sadie and tell her you’re sorry for being dumb and that you want her to be your girlfriend for real! There’s too much sadness in the world for you two to never get your act together! I’m so tired of this!”

Lars blinked and turned his head. Steven was standing on the bench, having apparently risen to his feet in his burst of righteous fury, and was scowling down at him.

“You’re perfect for each other,” Steven continued. “And it’s obvious to everyone that Sadie really really likes you! And Lars, I think that you really really like her too!”

Lars swallowed, the lump in his throat painfully hard.

“Don’t you?”

_Yeah, Lars, don’t you?_

“I...” Lars licked his dry lips. His lungs felt tight. “I...”

“I thought maybe after the island...” Steven sighed, deflated, and sat back down on the bench.

A seagull fluttered down, pecked at the ground by their feet fruitlessly for a moment or two before spreading its wings and taking flight again.

“Me too,” croaked Lars.

Steven glanced at him.

“I… thought maybe after the island… too.”

The silence stretched for fifteen seconds. Twenty. Lars finally chanced a glance up at Steven. Steven sat next to him, a big goofy grin on his face, both hands clasped to his cheeks.

“Awwww!” Steven cooed and Lars felt red hot embarrassment sweep over him.

“Shut up!” Lars scowled and shoved Steven’s shoulder hard so the boy tipped to the side, giggling. He stood up abruptly and shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Lars!” Steven’s grin was slowly fading, lingering like it tended to do. Steven was constantly smiling, a bright beam of optimism that cut through the cloud of weirdness that sometimes hovered over Beach City. Lars wondered for the billionth time how he did it.

“I really think you should talk to Sadie. As bad as you were sitting here feeling, she probably feels just as bad.”

Lars chewed his lower lip. Sadie deserved an apology. More than that, she deserved a better friend. Someone who could tell her how awesome she was and someone who didn’t choke on his words a thousand times again when all he wanted to do was say something nice. Someone who wasn’t him.

Heaviness weighed on his chest.

“Yeah...” he mumbled.

Steven jumped up off the bench and gave him a little push. “Go.”

Lars scowled at him, then looked off into the distance at the sun as it painted its dying light across the waves.

It was easy, right? Just words.

No, not just words. The most important words Lars had ever said. Words that would either save his friendship with Sadie or destroy it forever.

Words with power.

Oh dang it. Lars was _so_ screwed.

-

The walk to Sadie’s front door was somehow even longer than it had been earlier that afternoon.

Lars trudged up the walk, up the few steps to Sadie’s porch and for the second time that day, stood in front of the door with his fist frozen over the cheery paint.

_Just knock! Two millimeters and—_

Lars hammered on the door, frantic and off-rhythm.

A long beat, then two, then three.

Footsteps.

The door cracked open and Sadie’s mother poked her head out and peered at him.

“Yes? Oh, Lars, dear, hello.”

“Hi, Mrs. Miller,” Lars mumbled, shoving his hands deep in his pockets and hunching his shoulders.

Mrs. Miller pressed her lips together, looking distinctly uncomfortable. “I’m afraid Sadie doesn’t particularly want to see… anybody, right now.”

Lars heard the _you_ in the sentence that had gone unspoken loud and clear and his heart cracked just a fraction more.

“I… I know, can you just… I just wanted to a-apologize.”

The words came out more directed at the painted porch floorboards beneath his feet than to Mrs. Miller directly, so he missed the way her eyebrows rose in surprise.

“I was… kind of a jerk,” Lars informed the porch, feeling heat burn the back of his neck. “And I get she doesn’t wanna talk to me anymore. Ever. And she doesn’t have to. But I thought… she deserved an apology.”

Unable to stand there for a second longer, Lars spun on his heel and bolted for the street, walking as fast as he could without flat out running.

Mrs. Miller didn’t call after him and he didn’t stop.

He just kept walking and walking and walking until his aching feet walked him all the way to his own front door.

-

Saturday passed in a blur of snacks and hazy light through closed curtains. Lars lay sprawled on his back on his rumpled bed, a half-eaten bag of Doritos lying open on the side table, gaze fixed blankly at the ceiling.

His thoughts twisted in a never ending merry-go-round of warm memory and sharp regret.

_A beach, light creeping up the sand to warm their toes as Sadie pressed against his shoulder._

The crack in her voice when she’d broken their friendship off.

_The softest feelings of creeping prickling heat tiptoeing under his skin. He held Sadie’s face in his hands like she was going to shatter, heart screaming in his chest and tears smeared on his cheeks._

The look of anguish in her eyes as she’d shut the door.

Lars groaned and pulled his blanket over his head. He was buried there, beneath his blankets in a warm heavy ball of angst, when his phone chimed. The sound was muffled outside the blankets and Lars scowled at nothing in the dark. How dare someone be trying to call him when he was trying to block out the outside world?

He huffed and threw the blanket off his face and fumbled around his bed for his phone.

Not Sadie. Not that he’d really been expecting it to be, but…

_hey lars!!! u still comin to the rave 2nite???_

Jenny. Lars forced himself to sit up.

The absolute last thing on the entire planet Lars wanted to do was get out of bed and put on clean socks and go outside and be around people. He still had half a bag of Doritos to wallow in.

But if he turned Jenny down now, would they stop asking him to hang out?

They’d probably decide he wasn’t worth it and stop talking to him forever.

Lars groaned and threw his pillow across the room. It hit the wall with a _whump_ and fell to the floor, where it slumped over in weary defeat.

Lars tapped out a short message – _yeah_ – and rolled off the bed and onto the balls of his feet.

Socks. He needed socks.

-

The walk to the beach was shorter than Lars wanted it to be – in almost no time at all he was standing at the edge of the sand, looking down at the pulsing lights and dancing bodies. Sour Cream had gotten a decent turn out – Lars could just see him at the edge of the crowd, standing behind his turntables.

Yeah, he really didn’t want to go down there. There were a lot of people he recognized, and a few he didn’t. Steven was there, doing some kind of swing dance with Connie, and there, off to the side, Ronaldo was doing a sort of twisting disco-looking move in time to the music.

They looked like they were having fun. Lars just wasn’t really in the fun-having mood.

He wondered what Sadie was doing. He wondered if she was alright. He wondered if he’d ever see her again.

“Lars?”

Now he was even hearing her voice.

“Lars!”

Wait. Lars whipped around and there she was, standing behind him with her hands shoved in her jacket pockets. She looked unsure and Lars’ heart leaped at the sight of her hair windblown around her face.

“Sadie,” he whispered and involuntarily took a step forward.

Sadie hunched her shoulders. “I… uh, hey.”

“H-Hi!” He scrambled for something else to say. Anything, anything at all. “H-how are you?”

Sadie shrugged one shoulder.

Lars swallowed. “I… I came to your house. But your mom—”

“I know. I heard you.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

They fell silent. Lars felt his heart throb painfully in his throat and he took a deep breath. “Sadie, I’m sorry.”

The words were… surprisingly easy. His chest felt tight. He stared down at the sidewalk, at the toes of his sneakers that were worn through. “I shouldn’t have… done that. I was a jerk.”

Sadie was quiet for a long moment and when Lars looked up at her, she was contemplating him, face expressionless. He chewed on his lower lip. This was it. Just be a man and say something.

“The truth is...” he hesitated. What if she laughed at him? What if she told him she’d just come out here to tell him to go away and never speak to her again? What if she told the whole world how pathetic he was and everyone laughed in his face? “Th-the truth is...”

Sadie folded her arms over her chest and waited. Lars squeezed his eyes shut and thought desperately of a beach miles away, of the way Sadie had looked beaming triumphantly as she stood barefoot in the water, a fish speared on the end of a stick, and his gut clenched. The sun had painted her hair fiery gold and when he’d kissed her, she’d tasted like ocean salt.

“The truth is that when we were stuck on Steven’s stupid beach and I… and we k-ki… uh...” Lars sucked in another painfully deep breath. His hands were shaking. Why was this so _hard_?

“Lars?” Sadie whispered and Lars squeezed his eyes shut tighter and clenched his hands into fists at his sides.

“The truth is I like you!” he blurted out, hunching his shoulders. “I like you a lot and I dream about the beach and I’m sorry!”

He gasped a huge gulp of air, too much and nearly choked on it, coughing a bit. His heart was pounding wildly, palms slick with sweat, and he felt strangely dizzy, exhilarated and terrified, like he’d just run a thousand miles inches from a monster trying to snap him up and eat him for dinner.

The seconds crawled by until the silence had stretched too long and Lars forced himself to open his eyes. He stared first at his shoes, then at the sidewalk, before finally, finally dragging his eyes up to look at Sadie.

Sadie had one hand over her mouth, eyes big.

For a long moment, they just stared at each other, wary, afraid one wrong move would shatter everything into a thousand glittering pieces.

“Lars,” Sadie said finally, letting her hand drop. “Do you mean that?”

Lars nodded once, jerkily. “I… I get that you don’t… that I probably screwed everything up, but...”

“Lars—”

“But I just… I don’t want to not be friends.”

Sadie stepped forward, into his space, and when Lars didn’t flinch away, she reached out and took his hand.

“Don’t— I’m all sweaty.”

“I don’t care.” Sadie curled her fingers around his and squeezed his hand, gross stress-sweat and all. “Lars, I like you too. You’re my best friend.”

Lars clung to the words like a drowning man. “You’re my best friend too!”

“You don’t act like it. Sometimes.”

Lars wilted. “I know,” he whispered, closing his eyes again. “I know. I just… sometimes when I’m around you, I… words are—I’m sorry.”

Sadie let out a soft breath that Lars barely heard over the thump of the music and laughter going on just behind them and down the slope on the beach proper.

“Look, I don’t want to not be friends with you either.”

Lars’ eyes flew open. “R-Really? Even after I—” He clamped his mouth shut, cutting off the rest of his sentence. The last thing he wanted to do was dredge up what a terrible friend he’d been again.

Sadie shrugged one shoulder. “I’m still pretty mad at you.”

Lars didn’t have anything to say to that, because she had every right. But then Sadie was smiling, hesitant and soft, and Lars felt something release in his chest. She was so pretty, standing there on the sidewalk, her hand still curled in his.

“But I forgive you.” She laughed, a little awkwardly, and ran her free hand up into her hair, tucking a piece behind her ear. “After all, who would laugh at my dumb jokes about the donuts if we weren’t friends anymore?”

Lars lurched forward, dropping her hand and throwing his arms around her neck. He buried his face in her shoulder, spine curved to accommodate her height, and breathed in deep. Hot prickles crept up his throat and settled behind his eyes and he willed himself not to cry.

Sadie reached up and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, hugging him back tightly.

For a moment, they stood there, clinging tightly to each other as the party continued below them. The music felt a million miles away – Lars felt drained, exhausted, heavy with weariness.

Finally, Sadie shifted away from him. “Do you want to go down there?” she asked, nodding at the party. Lars let her go and Sadie shoved her hands in her jacket pockets, looking down into the pulsing lights and the laughing, dancing crowd.

It was the absolute last place on earth that Lars wanted to be.

He followed her gaze towards the crowd and saw Jenny and Buck, standing off to the side of the DJ table. Jenny was waving at him, beckoning him to come down into the crowd.

A familiar worry gnawed at his chest – if he turned them down, would they stop asking him to hang out? What if they never spoke to him again?

Then he turned and looked at Sadie. Sadie was also looking at Jenny and Buck and there was a look on her face like she knew what he was thinking.

“You can go down there, if you want,” she said, tucking that same stray strand of hair behind her ear again. She wasn’t looking at him.

Lars looked back down at the crowd again.

“Actually,” he heard himself say, eyes on the edge of the crowd where an older girl he only sort of recognized was dancing by herself, laughing brightly with her arms over her head as she spun barefoot on the sand. “This party looks totally lame. Wanna go back to your place and watch a movie?”

Sadie whipped her head to stare at him in surprise and he tore his eyes away from the girl – her bright smile reminded him of Steven, for some reason, but he thought she might be related to Connie somehow – to look at her.

Sadie studied him for just a moment before she grinned. “Yeah, ok!”

He held out his hand and Sadie took it.

It felt good, standing there in the ocean breeze and holding hands with Sadie Miller.

“Are you going to freak out if we watch _Murder House_?” Sadie asked, a lilt of teasing in her voice, and Lars snorted.

“What, no way! That one’s not even that scary! Besides, you’re the one who freaked out last time!”

“Because you jumped and kicked me with your freezing cold toes!”

They started off down the sidewalk back towards Sadie’s house. Lars didn’t let go of Sadie’s hand and after a moment, she stepped a shade closer, relaxing just a bit.

She continued to tease him about the movie and he fired right back, feeling his heartbeat against his ribs, and wondered if it was OK to put his arm around her.

Maybe tomorrow he’d ask her if she wanted to go out to a movie. He could buy her popcorn and put the little arm on the chair up and hold her hand and—

“Lars?” Lars blinked down at Sadie. She raised an eyebrow at him, leaning in and nudging him with her shoulder. “You OK? You looked a million miles away there.”

Lars looked down at her, taking in her eyes, the little half smile, that little stray piece of hair that just wouldn’t stay in place and he reached up, tucking it back behind her ear.

A tropical beach flashed into his mind for just the briefest instant before he shook it away.

“Yeah,” he said, squeezing her hand. “I’m good.”

She smiled up at him and squeezed his hand back. The music, fainter now behind them, swelled and the song ended. Lars could hear the crowd back on the beach cheering and couldn’t help but feel that they were cheering for him and Sadie.

Eh, alright, that was ridiculous. Cheesy and dumb.

“Are you OK?” he asked, feeling a quick flash of guilt that he hadn’t asked already.

Sadie grinned down at the tops of her shoes. “Getting there. Let’s just go home and watch a movie and stay up too late eating junk food, OK?”

Sadie had always been the braver one of the two of them but, maybe with her help, Lars could be brave too.

“Sure,” Lars said, nudging her with his shoulder and this time, when she smiled up at him, Lars smiled shyly back.


End file.
